FOR DESIRED PARENTHOOD. FAMILY PLANNING IN YUGOSLAVIA 1945–1974

ABSTRACT/RESUME: Although the socialist governments promoted maternity believing that it cannot be completely in the private sphere of women’s life, state policy in the field of family planning never tried to regulate fertility. In the early 60-ies, family planning became social, and not just a health issue. Although there was a general consensus that the number of unwanted pregnancies (and thus the number of abortions) should be prevented through sexual education, improvement of health care services for mother and child and by providing counseling and a wider range of contraceptives application these principles in practice was slow. Together with the Conference for Social Activity of Women, the Federal Council for Family Planning worked on shaping attitudes that served as a kind of platform for the adoption of the Resolution on Family Planning (1969) which was a kind of a national program. The right of the parents to determine the number of children in the family and the interval between births was defined as „one of the fundamental human rights“, which was to be achieved by using contraception. In accordance with this view, an abortion was defined as the „last means that would enable women to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.“ A few years later, the human right to decide freely on having children was included in the Constitution (1974).

KEYWORDS: Yugoslavia, State council for family planning, abortion, desired parenthood, Resolution on family planning